when I was in middle school I racked up over half a YEAR playtime in Minecraft and gave myself carpel tunnel. I only played Minecraft 1.8.9 which was at least 10 versions out of date by that point. I never even made anything I just played on Hypixel.
I did get full superior dragon armor in Hypixel Skyblock by spotting that you could buy a fish for 2 coins but sell it for like 20 coins if you craft it into bait because people are lazy. So I bought and sold millions of fish 2,500 at a time.
I later found that you could just craft dragon armor using shards and sell them on the auction house for about 100k profit and made BANK before other people caught on.
I loved finding those little market loopholes. Sad that nerds eventually caught on and made websites to automate it, and that the game went pay to win. Those were some good times though.
also hot take but dwarvern mines ruined the game. It’s “SKYblock” not “infinite land block”
I think you would really thrive in EVE Online, if you’re looking for a different sandbox to pull off this kind of crap in. Your autist and autist-tolerant community awaits.
The game is so complex and nuanced that the learning curve is nigh impossible to overcome by yourself but it also means that the game is full of fun little interactions and opportunities for people to discover and exploit.
A lot of early game poverty, sprawling decision fatigue, and impenetrable mechanical complexity can be mitigated by knowing people, so if you do give it a try, DM me and I can infodump all about my special interest.
LOL I hoped that I would find Eve Online mentioned in the comments.
Also ck2 and eu4
As someone who’s currently winning the game at the moment, I will note for those interested but unfamiliar that “winning the game” is what Eve players call taking a break. At this point, it’s more fun as a game to read about. But getting to that point was an adventure for sure, and I still hang in my old corp’s spaces.
Most of the game is boring, but the fun parts absolutely gave me the highest adrenaline highs of any game by far.
Always kinda wanted to get into eve, just didn’t have any friends into it and yea it’s pretty intimidating to get into solo